


to fight aloud is very brave

by MercuryGray



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Bruises, F/M, Fist Fights, handwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23717872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: There has been a fight, and Emma has been placed in charge of patching up after.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	to fight aloud is very brave

**Author's Note:**

> To fight aloud, is very brave -   
> But gallanter, I know  
> Who charge within the bosom  
> The Calvalry of Wo - 
> 
> \- Emily Dickinson

They told her the man was clearly drunk.

The man,(one Sergeant Wilcox, she later learned) had come to visit his cousin, recuperating from an amputation at the knee, and the two of them had been swapping stories and ( and nips from a flask) for the better part of the afternoon, and the whole visit would have passed without incident until Hale blustered by to check in on his patient. “This the fool that chopped your leg, Tim?” Wilcox had said, rising somewhat unsteadily from his chair. His cousin, also emboldened, no doubt, by whatever was in the flask, nodded. “Short sumbitch, innit he?”

Hale had sputtered and turned approximately the color of a sunburnt tomato, and words had been exchanged, and the words had gotten a little more heated, and somewhere in the exchange Wilcox had begun threatening Hale, until Hopkins, rising from a bedside he’d been attending down the row, drew his not inconsiderable frame up and suggested this wasn’t the time or place to do this, which, of course, had not been taken well - Wilcox spun towards the voice, shouting that no lily-livered preacher would tell him what to do, and then the room had...exploded.

“It was  _ keen _ ,” her informant, an enthusiastic orderly of nineteen missing an arm, told her as they walked to the closet where the nurses kept their supplies and a compounding table. “There’s Sergeant Wilcox swinging wildly towards the Chaplain, and he got a few good swipes in, but then the Chaplain - well, you know he’s not so short himself, Nurse, and - WHAM. Like a sledgehammer. Went down in one blow. Woulda paid to see that in a ring.”

Well she could imagine it - hadn’t she’d seen him do it before? A soldier he might not be, but not for nothing had the chaplain spent the last six months lifting stretchers and coffins and hauling firewood. And that ended it. The Provost Marshall had come for Wilcox, his cousin had been put on bread and water on the ward, and Emma had been summoned to the nurse’s store with water and clean linen while Anne quieted the ward.

Henry was waiting in the supply room on an upturned barrel, almost stunned, his hands resting loosely on his legs, coat removed and sleeves turned up so she'd have room to work. The knuckles of his right hand were red and angry and threatening to bruise a little themselves, but that could wait - it was his face she wanted to see to first.

An ugly purple rim was starting to form around Henry's cheek where the ridge of the sergeant's knuckles had hit, the skin broken where the man's uncut nail had dragged across it. She cleared her throat, and he looked up, almost surprised. "I thought I'd wash your face," she offered, holding up the pan, and he nodded, putting Emma in mind of her own brother coming home with a schoolyard bruise, an anxious boy knowing that some greater punishment was probably in store. 

She moved closer, her skirt brushing his knees, putting the pan down on the counter beside him so she could reach up and mix a little salt into the water. "This was going to be for the tea for luncheon," she said, as lightly as she could, dipping her cloth in and turning around to inspect his face. "It's warm, but the salt’ll sting a little."

He wouldn't meet her eye, and she reached out, tentative, and tipped his face up, the rough skin of his chin unfamiliar to her. Was that a tremble in his hand as she did so? But his eyes remained fixed on the wall behind her head, and she continued as though this were perfectly normal, as though he were just some other patient and not...Henry, not a man she’d seen moved to terrible violence before and been unable to help. The only movement he allowed was a wince as the linen touched the broken skin, and she unconsciously mirrored it. "I'm sorry," Emma said again, blotting at the wound as gently as she could.  _ I’m sorry it hurts, and I’m sorry it’s me, and I’m sorry you were brought to this, and I’m...just sorry. _

"It's not your fault," he said, finally. "It was my temper."

_ Oh, Lord above save me from your temper, _ she wanted to say, but that was harsh, and he’d take it the wrong way, as he always did. She collected herself. "That wasn't your temper," she said, still carefully blotting. "Tempers are mean-spirited. That was...instinct. Protection of someone you love." How quickly his eyes came to hers! Had a startled deer ever had eyes that shade of blue? "Or care about, anyway," she amended, trying not to let her hand linger at his throat, unsure whether they were still talking about this fight or one longer ago. "Now, let me see that hand." 

She stepped back a pace so he could hold it up for her to bathe, taking the pan on his knees so she could dish the water up over the scraped skin of his knuckles. "You'll look like a regular prizefighter, with that wrapped and your face purple. You're lucky he didn't hit shy and break your nose."

That, at least, got a wry smile. "What would a girl like you know about prizefighting?"

"I've got a brother who loves to break rules and a father who likes to see and be seen," Emma said, matter-of-factly. "Bare-knuckle boxing's hardly the worst thing in my vocabulary."  _ Mama keeps saying I'll be spoiled for society after this, but society isn't all white gloves and tea dances either, when it comes down to it. _

She laid aside the granite-ware cup and patted his knuckles dry, swapping her linen for a length of bandage and threading it through his fingers so she might tie it off after. His hand was so much larger than hers, and warm. There was a callus developing on his palm from carrying stretchers, a stain and bump on his finger from where he held his pen too tight. These were hands, she realized, that cared too much and loved too deeply. She was suddenly conscious of how dry her own skin was after washing her hands day in and day out, how ragged her fingers looked. Her own knuckles were starting to look like a washerwoman's. 

“There, that should keep you,” she said when the bandage was done. But she found she could not let it go, holding it in both of her own as though she were giving it back to him. “Now...this...this hand,” she said, quietly, "is caring, and kind, and gentle. It's not prone to violence, and I've never seen it give hurt to anyone unless it was provoked. And its owner is far, far too hard on himself." His eyes met hers a moment and turned away. "Plenty of other people will beat you raw if you let them, Henry Hopkins. Don't do their job for them by beating yourself." 

And, wisdom dispensed, she lifted it to her lips and kissed it, ever so softly, meaning to touch the bandage but meeting the tops of his fingers instead, the reversal of a hundred insincere, foppish welcomes. Was it a dream that the hand might turn, caress her face? But no such movement came, and she let go, turning so she could gather up the remaining bandage and sort out the lump in her throat. “And you ought to know before you go outside that Private Jacobson’s already wondering when he can organize your exhibition match, so if you’d like to...stay and take a moment, I can warn him off.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I wasn’t always,” Emma said, truthfully. “But I learned. And so have you. You might remember it more often."

She was just about to leave when his voice, almost hoarse, spoke again, a single word - her name. "Emma." Dared she turn? Offer to kiss that cheek of his, too? She looked back over her shoulder, his body only in her periphery. "Thank you."

**Author's Note:**

> Who doesn't love a little mostly-intimate handwashing?


End file.
